“Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign . . . and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord . . . Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places” (15:1-4). Something similar is said of almost all the kings in Jerusalem. Such a mixed bag of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. Pretty much across the board, the kings in the north are described as totally unfaithful. But back and forth, south-north-south-north, goes the telling of this history as the northern kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Samaria approaches its final days during the reign of Hoshea: “The king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria . . . And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods” (17:6-7). And so, in the year 722 B.C., the northern kingdom no longer existed.
God had warned the people. And even without the warnings, they should have remembered God’s gracious acts on their behalf and faithfully looked to him. They forgot. We must never forget.
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine:
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart:
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget! --Rudyard Kipling (1897)
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